Many causes for transsexualism have been proposed over the
years. As discussed earlier in Lynn's TG/TS/IS
information, it's long been known from intersex data that
the genes do not determine gender identity, and recent follow-ups
on intersex infant surgeries show that consistency of "genitals
and upbringing" does not determine gender identity.

Instead, current scientific results strongly suggest neurobiological
origins for transsexualism: Something appears to happen during
the in-utero development of the transsexual child's central nervous
system (CNS) so that the child is left with innate, strongly
perceived cross-gender body feelings and self-perceptions. We
still don't know for sure what causes this neurological development,
and more research needs to be done. But the neurobiological direction
for these explorations seem clear.

However, even without any scientific evidence to back them
up, many psychiatrists and psychologists over the past four decades
have simply assumed that transsexualism is a "mental illness".
By DEFINING this socially unpopular condition to be a mental
illness, these mental health professionals have shaped much of
the medical establishment's and society's views of transsexuals
as psychopathological "sexual deviants".

This page is an investigative report that describes and contrasts
the older "mental illness" concept of transsexualism
with more recently emerging scientific evidence of neurobiological
bases for innate gender identity in humans.

It is a capital mistake to theorize before
one has data.

Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories,

instead of theories to suit facts -

- Sherlock Holmes

[in Arthur Conan Doyle's "A
Scandal in Bohemia" (1891)]

Traditional behaviorist psychological
theories of transsexualism

Behaviorist psychology was a dominent school of thought during
the 1950's-80's, and has left a deep imprint on theories of gender
and sexual behavior. Behaviorists "believe" that an
infant's mind is a blank slate upon which social factors and
conditioning act to produce all aspects of personality, including
gender. This belief takes the form of an axiom in their works
- a basic assumption not based in evidence but upon which they
derive results. Because of this belief in the infant's "mind
as a blank slate", they have long had faith in John Money's
"genitalia and upbringing" theory of gender-identity
formation.

Readers should carefully study the section on Gender
Basics in Lynn's TG/TS/TS Information pages for background
on John Money's theory, and on the
recent shattering of Money's theory when it was discovered
that he had fabricated many results and concealed any counterevidence.
For many decades his theory was the basis for arbitrary surgical
sex reassignments of intersex infants, mostly boys with tiny
or missing penises who were turned into "girls". Many
of these kids reassigned as infants required later re-reassignments
as boys when their innate gender identities became clear during
childhood. In most cases, the boys lives were shattered by the
surgeries that had been forced upon them as infants (they lost
what genital tissues they had, as well as the ability to have
orgasm). Money never reported any follow-ups of these infant
surgeries that revealed the horrors that had been going on.

As we'll see, behaviorist theory has also had horrific impact
on the lives of transsexual people, by classifying them as being
"mentally ill", instead of being open to the scientific
possibility that they too have innate gender feelings. Denying
the existance of any inborn gender identity, behaviorists (following
Money's ideas) see transsexualism as a failure of a person to
properly socialize into their correct gender during childhood
and adolescence, leading to "sexually deviant practices"
in the adult which then brings on "mental illness"
including the urge to "change sex".

From this viewpoint, transsexualism is viewed as psychopathological.
It is even listed as a mental illness in the American Psychiatric
Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders, under the term "Gender Identity Disorder"
(GID). This listing stigmatizes transsexualism as a mental illness,
just as psychiatrists stigmatized "homosexuality" and
"nymphomania" in the past (of course being gay is now
seen as a natural variation in sexual-partner orientation, and
being a sensual woman is now a sought-after-norm by many women).

In the absence of definitive scientific explanations for
transsexualism, which await a deeper understanding of developmental
biology, certain dogmatic psychologists and pyschiatrists have
seized the opportunity to spout and publish unscientific behaviorist
"theories" without much challenge from the public,
the medical establishment or the scientific establishment. They
have long defended their theories in the same manner as John
Money defended his: by maintaining dominant positions in their
peer networks, attacking the "credentials" of any challengers,
and attempting to suppress any counter-evidence put forward by
others.

Unfortunately, this sort of behavior can be effective in
one's advancement in niche fields such as sexology and gender
studies, fields that attract few serious scientists and that
are not subjected to close outside scrutiny by serious scholars.
So powerful is the impact of a domineering "leader"
like a John Money in a niche fields such as sexology that many
wanna-be's imitate his "dominance wins" style of behavior.
When aggregated, such behaviors lead to the degeneration of such
fields into non-scientific cliques of "experts" who
rant about nonsense-theories not based in evidence, with each
expert doing "whatever it takes" to get their pet theory
accepted. Unfortunately, this "he who dominates wins"
methodology is the only "scientific tradition" underlying
many behaviorist psychiatrists' theories in the realm of gender
studies.

Believing transsexualism to be a mental illness, behaviorist
psychiatrists often try to treat transsexual people by "conditioning"
and/or "aversion therapy". Many transsexuals, especially
young transsexuals taken to psychiatrists by their parents, have
undergone years of costly psychiatric counseling to "cure
their transsexualism". There have no reports of permanent
cures. After inevitably failing to cure a transsexual, and considering
her to be "permanently mentally ill", these psychiatrists
may sometimes approve her for SRS. Of course the years of useless
therapy cost thousands of dollars and waste valuable gender-corrected
living-time that can never be recovered.

The "two-type" behaviorist
theory of transsexualism

In the late 80's, certain behaviorists proposed a very specific
"two-type" theory of transsexualism that has since
"caught on" in psychiatric circles as "explaining
the cause of transsexual mental illness". Two types of sexual
urges were "intuited" and then described by behaviorists
to explain MtF transsexualism: (i) extreme "effeminate homosexuality",
and, more recently, (ii) obsessive "autogynephilic autosexuality".
These so-called "deviant adult practices" are thought
of as gradually "conditioning the transsexual" to want
to "change into a woman". The theorists proclaim that
these are the only causes of transsexualism, and all MtF transsexual
people are of either one type or the other. This theory was developed
and elaborated BEFORE the collapse of John Money's theory of
gender was discredited, and it promotors are scrambling now to
salvage it.

The main promoters of this "two-type theory" are
Ray Blanchard, Ph.D., a clinical sexologist at the notorious
Gender Identity Clinic of Ontario's Clarke
Institute of Psychiatry who originated the idea, and his
chief protege, J.
Michael Bailey, Ph.D., a psychologist at Northwestern University.

Only by reading Bailey in the original can you get some idea
of how totally bogus and methodologically flawed this so-called
"scientific work" is. For example, Bailey's website
contains a paper entitled "Women
Who Were Once Boys" that simply asserts as fact, without
any basis, that there are "two categories of transsexuals:
homosexual and autogynephilic", and he then uses various
anecdotal evidence from "interviews" to show how TS
people fit into this categorization.

Bailey's paper even goes on to include a simple twelve question
"test" on how to tell the two types apart! However,
it concludes with the warning: "Keep in mind that people
don't always tell the truth. This interview could be invalid
if the transsexual is actually autogynephilic but is either (a)
worried that you will think badly of her or deny her a sex change
if you know the truth, or (b) obsessed with being a "real"
woman." Apparantly Bailey easily disregards any answers
that don't agree with his theory by simply characterizing the
responder as a "lier"!

For more insight into the shallow, speculative, pseudo-scientific
theorizing of people like J. Michael Bailey, see the quote
of Bailey attached below regarding "stereotypes of gay people
that are real". Unfortunately, the writings and lecturings
of "sexologists" like Blanchard and Bailey are taken
fairly seriously in psychiatric counseling circles, where few
people have the courage or the wits to challenge the ideas of
these aggressive theory-promoters who publish widely in obscure
sexological journals.

Let's now consider each of these "two types" ideas
in turn, and learn how the sexologists/psychologists/psychiatrists
went wrong in their speculations.

There have always been some gay males who are very effeminate.
Some of these men will occasionally dress in drag. But such males
do not want to become women - they love being men, and love other
men - and they are simply signalling their homosexuality using
methods that are traditional in the gay community. Such a gay
male is never "conditioned by his sexual activity"
to want to become a woman. The sexologists' error is to not differentiate
between the effeminate homosexual male and the young transsexual
girl whose cross-gender feelings developed long before puberty.
The sexologists thus mistakingly jump to the conclusion that
effeminate homosexuality is equivalent to transsexualism, and,
conversely, that addiction to "homosexual behavior"
must have been what caused the transsexualism of those young
TS girls who incorrectly appear to be effeminate homosexuals
to the psychiatrists.

In this theorizing, the sexologists and psychiatrists are
victims of another of their errors, namely their notion that
transsexualism is extremely rare. By assuming that transsexualism
occurs in only 1:30,000 males, and then only looking for and
sampling "transsexuals" in the gay male bar scene (where
only a tiny fraction of TS girls hang out), they "confirm"
their theory that most young TS girls come from among young "effeminate
gay males" who have become addicted to receptive sex. After
all, they find more than enough TS girls in that scene to cover
the 1:30,000 prevalence number. What they do not perceive is
that the young effeminate males and the young TS girls themselves
know that they are two totally different kinds of people, even
though they may hang out in some of the same bars. By overfocussing
on the gay bar scene as a source for "transsexual research
subjects", the psychiatrists miss seeing the vastly larger
number of TS girls who have no contact with that scene, who've
had no "homosexual conditioning", and who are strong
counter-examples to their "theory".

By insisting on the validity of the theory that "young
transsexuals cause their transsexualism by addiction to homosexual
practices", the sexologists and psychiatrists never seemed
to notice the important group of "strong counter-examples"
to this theory - namely that a moderate percentage (perhaps as
much as 20% to 30%) of all young TS girls are actually "lesbian"
in their female gendering and prefer other girls as love-partners.
Worse yet, the psychiatrists years ago made the existance of
these young girls "invisible" by never writing letters
of support for SRS for any TS girl who was known to be "lesbian"!
In other words, since these girls didn't fit their theory of
transsexualism, they were denied SRS because "they weren't
transsexual" according to the psychiatrists. As a result,
even to this day, many young TS girls who are lesbian try to
avoid their gender counselors about their sexual preference for
girls, fearing that this preference will hurt their chances for
approval for SRS.

Therefore, we see that two errors in "theory",
namely (i) that transsexualism is extremely rare and (ii) that
transsexualism is caused by conditioning to receptive homosexual
sex, are compounded and mutually support each others' apparant
validity. This compound error is only recognized if one realizes
that MtF transsexualism is about
two orders of magnitude more common than previously recognized
and that it mostly occurs in young boys who are not or were not
immersed in the gay male bar scene.

Then, in recent years, a new phenomenon has appeared that
has also caught the psychiatrists' attention: A number of intensely
transvestic males have become aware, later in life, that the
physical transformations made possible by transsexual medical
and surgical technology might revitalize and enhance their solitary
sexual pleasures. These are male-gendered persons who desire
to live in, and enjoy sexually playing with themselves in, the
body of a woman. These individuals may even seek SRS, even though
they are male gendered and in many cases have no particular desire
to socially transition. The appearance of this phenomenon is
simply a byproduct of the availability of gender modification
technology - an application of that technology for something
different than it was originally designed for (correction of
transsexualism).

In such cases, the psychiatrists' model of sexually conditioned
behavior appears to offer an explanation for the behavior, because
these people often self-describe their condition to counselors
as being males who want to heighten their transvestic pleasures.
However, such intensely transvestic autogynephilic males retain
their male gender feelings even after being transformed physically
into females. Therefore, they are on a completely different gender-identity
trajectory from that of transsexuals. The psychiatrists' mistake
is to that they confuse autogynephilia with being equivalent
to late-transitioning transsexualism.

The existance of these two visible and identifiable groups
of males (effeminate "homosexual" transsexuals and
autogynephiles) who "appear to be transsexual", and
whose "transsexualism" appears to fit the behaviorist's
model that "sexual disorders are caused by conditioning",
has led many psychiatrists and psychologists to the generalization
that ALL transsexualism is explained by just these TWO particular
types of male sexual pleasure-seeking activity.

Although there is no scientific basis for these behaviorist
ideas, many male psychiatrists just can't imagine anything except
powerful male sexual urges gone awry that could cause an apparantly
normal male to want to become a woman. Such psychiatrists thus
try to stall-off transsexual surgeries as long as possible, even
for decades in some cases, until it is obvious that a patient's
"homosexual urges" or "autogynephilic urges"
cannot be further contained. Operating under an incorrect model
of transsexualism they can do irrevocable harm by long-delaying
the gender transitions of many actual transsexuals who come under
their guidance.

[By the way, these same male psychiatrists
never question why an FtM transsexual would want to be a man,
nor do they generate theories that FtM people want to be men
because of "powerful female sexual urges gone awry".
To them it seems obvious that any woman might want to be a man,
and thus it is only the MtF transsexual who is considered to
be "mentally ill". There is also present in their thinking
a quaintly Victorian notion that only males have strong sexual
drives, that only males masturbate and have orgasms, and that
women are inherently passive sexually.]

This situation has been worsened by additional over-promotion
of the "theory of autogynephilia as the main cause of transsexualism"
by an AG person who happens to run a very visible and oft-accessed
TS women's support site. This person, openly identifying as an
autogynephile, projects their own experience and condition on
most other transsexual women (except those who were very early
transitioners and who admit having early "homosexual"
activity). When doing this projection and when theorizing that
most transsexual women are actually autogynephiles, this person
mimics the well-known macho-dominant style of John Money - doing
anything possible to promote their "theory" and to
defame as "liers" those who "deny being autogynephiles".

Amazingly, the promoters of the autogynephilia theory of
late-transitioners don't seem to notice that many late transitioners
do not just spend their lives alone engaging in solo-sex after
transition as their theory would suggest. Instead, many late
transitioners go on to form wonderful loving relationships -
some with women and some with men - relationships in which they
are fully sexual love-partners. Sadly, the widespread promotion
of the non-scientific "autogynephilia theory" has caused
a lot of angst among transsexual women who correctly perceive
this as yet another trigger for public stigmatization and humiliation.

Unfortunately, many decades of such speculative, non-evidence-based
theorizing about the causes of transsexualism have greatly muddied
the waters of thinking about this condition. To this day, the
mental-illness model of the condition permeates the general medical
profession and negatively impacts public stereotypes of transsexual
people. All of this "theorizing" is without any scientific
foundation whatsoever, being little more than the "intuitions"
of the most dominant thought leaders among sexologists, starting
with John Money.

Maybe we should raise the question "what causes people
to become sexologists", apply the same "intuitive"
methods to answer that question, and then see how sexologists
react to our resulting theories!

Applying some common sense to
question these behaviorist "theories"

Now let's apply some common sense here. The deep sense of
being incorrectly gendered begins in childhood for intense transsexuals,
long before sexual feelings develop. After puberty, many young
pre-op TS girls are attracted to boys just like any other girl
would be. TS girls who are feminine and attractive may find boyfriends
and make love with them while pre-op, just as any other girl
would do. But these are not boy-to-boy homosexual relationships.
These young transsexuals are thought of as girls by their boyfriends
(just as Lynn was at ages 19-22), and their boyfriends are heterosexual,
not homosexual. For psychiatrists to say that the "homosexual"
sexual experiences of pre-op TS girls' CAUSES their transsexualism
is an incredible reversal of cause and effect. Instead it is
their innate feelings of being female that cause them to seek
the love of boys, and then in some cases to have sex with boys
(always as "the girl") in order to find affirmation
of their femaleness.

Also, many older MtF transsexuals if long untreated become
obsessed with the idea of becoming women. Is that so surprising?
Older pre-op transsexuals without partners may also be autosexual.
But aren't most humans without partners autosexual? Masturbation
itself is not a solely a "male" activity nor is it
a sign of "autogynephilia", as these psychiatrists
seem to suggest. Many women enjoy their bodies very much, and
many women masturbate for sexual pleasure and orgasmic release.
Autosexuality on the part of pre-op (and postop) transsexuals
of any age is just a natural part of their human nature, whether
male or female, instead of being a "male sexual fetish".
(It seems likely now that the old time male behaviorist psychologists
didn't even know that many women masturbate and can have orgasms!).

To say that "thinking about being a woman while engaging
in autosexual activity" CAUSES transsexualism is clearly
another reversal of cause and effect. My goodness, do you think
that a preop MtF transsexual would have masturbation fantasies
in which she is a man? Common sense says she will have sexual
fantasies in which she is a woman, because that is her inner
identity. Therefore, to say that ALL late-transitioning transsexuals
are autogynephilic is similarly a reversal of cause and effect.

Unfortunately, most male psychiatrists and psychologists,
never themselves having experienced the intense gender-identity-alienation,
cannot get the idea out of their heads that "sexual urges
must be the cause" (their own male sexual urges being the
strongest urges they themselves have ever felt).

In summary: Common sense tells us that the sexual practices
of pre-op transsexuals, as they struggle during their difficult
life trajectories to cope with bodies that are mis-gendered,
can be far more easily explained and understood as being a natural
BYPRODUCT of, rather than the CAUSE of, their transsexualism.
Thus the old "mental illness" theories of transsexualism
are based on a classic error in science: They have confused,
reversed and conflated CAUSE and EFFECT.

A lot of damage is done by the old mental illness theories.
When psychiatric authority figures subtly brainwash a transsexual
patient into believing that she is causing her own transsexualism
by engaging in "homosexuality" or "autogynephilic
masturbation", and then attempt to delay her transition
for years or decades, she can lose all chances of ever later
assimilating into society as a woman. Even if she transitions,
she may actually think of herself as a deviant male rather than
as a woman, and may be stuck with that self-image forever. This
is especially true in cases where her psychiatrists insist that
she buy into and parrot their theories, forcing her to admit
that she is a "mentally-ill man" as a condition for
signing letters of consent for her SRS.

When a counselor uses the terms homosexual transsexual and
autogynephilic transsexual to classify their clients, it's a
sure tip-off they believe that ALL transsexuals are mentally
ill sexual deviants who have caused their own transsexualism.
Lynn advises transsexuals to avoid counselors who label transsexuals
in these judgmental behaviorist categories. Transsexuals are
also advised to avoid TG/TS support groups whose members identify
primarily as autogynephilic, because they will not fit-in well
and will not learn useful skills for assimilation as women in
such groups. [On the other hand, older highly transvestic males
who desire transsexual physical modifications should seek out
such support groups; they should also seek counselors whose practice
primarily involves autogynephiles, and who will refer such males
for transsexual surgery, including SRS.]

Also consider recent
research by psychiatrists in Norway that has found that TS
patients selected for sex reassignment showed a relatively low
level of psychopathology both before and after treatment. This
new research also casts doubt on the old view that transsexualism
is a "severe mental disorder".

For a further indictment of the professionalism, scientific
credibility, factual accuracy and veracity of the APA and the
DSM-IV regarding transsexualism, see Lynn's discussion of the
question "How frequently does
transsexualism occur?".

Recent neurological theories of
transsexualism

Except for the behaviorists (who unfortunately are still
dominant among "sexologists" and "gender theorists"),
most schools of psychological thought have ruled out causes related
to upbringing, social interactions and sexual practices as leading
to transsexualism. As in other fundamental areas of personality,
most scientific researchers now believe that the formation of
gender identity most likely occurs at an innate neurobiological
level. Serious scientific research on the formation of gender
identity is now focused on understanding the processes of CNS
neurological integration of the fetus during pregnancy.

Recent research indicates that MtF transsexualism may result
from a female differentiation in a genetic male of the BSTc portion
of the hypothalamus, during interactions between the developing
brain and fetal sex hormones; this brain region is essential
to sexual feelings and behavior. The first such research was
reported in 1995: See NATURE, 378: 60-70, 1995 (this paper
is also web accessible at http://www.symposion.com/ijt/ijtc0106.htm
). Significant extensions of this earlier work have just been
reported, in May 2000 (see following abstract and link to the
full paper) :

Transsexuals experience themselves as being
of the opposite sex, despite having the biological characteristics
of one sex. A crucial question resulting from a previous brain
study in male-to-female transsexuals was whether the reported
difference according to gender identity in the central part of
the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BSTc) was based on a
neuronal difference in the BSTc itself or just a reflection of
a difference in vasoactive intestinal polypeptide innervation
from the amygdala, which was used as a marker. Therefore, we
determined in 42 subjects the number of somatostatin-expressing
neurons in the BSTc in relation to sex, sexual orientation, gender
identity, and past or present hormonal status. Regardless of
sexual orientation, men had almost twice as many somatostatin
neurons as women (P < 0.006). The number of neurons in the
BSTc of male-to-female transsexuals was similar to that of the
females (P =3D 0.83). In contrast, the neuron number of a female-to-male
transsexual was found to be in the male range. Hormone treatment
or sex hormone level variations in adulthood did not seem to
have influenced BSTc neuron numbers. The present findings of
somatostatin neuronal sex differences in the BSTc and its sex
reversal in the transsexual brain clearly support the paradigm
that in transsexuals sexual differentiation of the brain and
genitals may go into opposite directions and point to a neurobiological
basis of gender identity disorder.

Support for this brain-differentiation and CNS imprinting
theory of gender identity also comes from the recently reported
research studies on intersex boys
who had been surgically changed into girls and raised as girls,
yet who grew up insisting on being boys (see the important earlier
section on the intersexed).
These follow-up studies demonstrate that having female genitals
and being raised as girls did not make these brain-sexed boys
into girls. They somehow deeply knew that they were boys, in
spite of all the external evidence that they were girls - in
other words, they presented just as if they were FtM transsexual
boys.

The we an see how the old behaviorist "genitals plus
upbringing" psychological theory has caused tremendous pain
and suffering, especially amongst (i) intersexed children who've
undergone unwanted genital surgery and incorrect gender reassignment
during their upbringing, and (ii) transsexual children who've
undergone extended psychiatric "treatment" such as
shock therapy, aversion therapy and behaviorist conditioning
therapy in futile efforts to "reverse" their transsexualism,
and who've been forced to grow up in the wrong gender in spite
of their pleas and suffering. In the case of transsexual children
there is also the added social stigmatization of being declared
"mentally ill" by the psychiatric profession.

Emerging scientific understanding of gender identity and
the accumulating empirical evidence of successful gender transitions
can help society and the medical community avoid such terrible
treatments and misclassifications in the future, and better help
these innocent children to find their best paths in life in each
individual case. If anyone doubts that those who undergo gender
transition can go on to lead full and happy lives, all they need
do is study the empirical evidence at Lynn's "TS
Women's Successes" and "Successful
TransMen" pages.

What if there is no cause? Could
gender transition just be a "lifestyle choice"?

Is gender transition a "choice" or "fate"?
This question very often arises in conversations about transsexualism.
The notion that transition is a lifestyle "choice"
is rather prevalent in our society, and can be just as stigmatizing
as the idea that it is due to a mental illness. But why do people
jump to the conclusion that it is a choice? Perhaps it is because
of the apparent suddenness of the onset of many transsexual transitions.

Transsexual women often appear to be completely normal males
before announcing they are going to "change sex". The
apparent suddenness of these transitions, and the rapid and dramatic
physical changes that follow, fuels speculation among family,
friends and co-workers that these "decisions" are very
irrational ones. People often interpret unexpected transitions
as "mental breakdowns", or as sudden "choices"
to do something totally weird and prurient and probably for "sexual
reasons". (These interpretations are furthered by the occasional
cases of autogynephilic males who go through hormone therapy
and SRS specifically for sexual reasons, and who remain rather
visibly transgendered and do not "vibe" as women afterwards).

What most people cannot comprehend is the extreme gender
distress these transsexuals have endured during their entire
lives. Forced by extreme family and societal pressures to keep
their distress a secret from everyone else and never show any
signs of cross-gender feelings, they simply suffer horrifically
in silence, never revealing what is wrong inside. When the gender
angst becomes totally overwhelming, and transsexual people seek
counseling and discover options for gender-transition, the floodgates
open in their minds: Transition then becomes an intensely sought-after
goal, and to others may appear to have arisen out of the blue,
as if it were a sudden "choice". However, gender transition
is NOT a choice. Instead it is destiny for those who are
intensely transsexual.

Why is there so much fixation
on "causes" anyway?

Do we really need to know the
cause in order to treat the condition?

Why is there so much fixation on "causes" anyway?
The answer is simple: Transsexualism has been such a socially
unpopular condition in the past that the issue of "what
causes it" has always raised in discussions about what to
do about it.

In the past many behaviorist psychologists and psychiatrists
have inherently blamed transsexuals for causing their own "sexually
deviant mental illness", giving those psychiatrists a claim
to responsibility for "treatment and cure of transsexual
people" and giving society a rationale for discrimination,
marginalization and ghettoization of transsexual people.

However, as we've seen, transsexualism is most likely a neurological
condition of as yet unknown origin and not a "mental illness".
There are many other intense neurological conditions such a pain,
depression and bipolar disorders for which we do not know the
underlying causes but suspect biological causes. We know that
these other conditions are real because we see people in distress,
and we treat those people medically and with compassion to relieve
their suffering.

Why should it be any different with transsexualism? We now
know how to relieve the suffering of transsexual people, having
many options for practical counseling, social transition and
hormonal/surgical gender reassignment. Why not accept those treatments
as valid, since they truly relieve suffering and enhance the
quality of life, even if we aren't sure what causes the underlying
condition. And why stigmatize people just because they have sought
medical treatment for this condition.

Fortunately there are a rapidly growing number of compassionate
non-behaviorist gender counselors who provide practical help
for transitioning transsexual people. These counselors follow
a model of "informed consent" for their clients, presenting
options for treatments and counseling clients on pragmatic, effective
ways of resolving their gender issues.

Most present-day, self-reliant transsexual people who are
planning and managing their own transitions seek the advice and
counsel of the modern-day pragmatic gender-counselors, and they
avoid traditional psychiatrists like the plague. Modern medical
treatments can resolve the transsexual condition, even in the
absence of scientific understanding of the detailed biological
mechanisms that determine one's innate gender identity.

The following quote of J.
Michael Bailey will help readers calibrate the incredibly
naive and non-scientific level of thinking common among so-called
"sexological researchers" when they speculate about
and characterize their "research subjects". Any intelligent
reader will sense the arrogance, shallowness and lack of perceptiveness
in Bailey's thinking, his lack of sound evidence upon which to
base conclusions, and his total conflation of causes and effects.
Ask yourself if YOU'D like to be on the receiving end of "scientific
thinking" like this? Need I say more?

With J. Michael Bailey, Department of Psychology,
Northwestern University

Q: What stereotypes have turned out to have
some truth to them?

A: One big thing is occupational and recreational
interests. In fact, hairdressers, professional dancers, actors
and designers tend to be gay men, at least at much higher rates
than their population rate, which is somewhere between 1 and
4 percent. And women who are in the armed services, or professional
athletes (two of the three best all-time women's tennis players
are lesbian), are disproportionately lesbian.

Children who are sex-atypical do tend to become homosexual. Especially
males. Boys who want to be girls become men who want men. Most
very masculine girls probably become heterosexual women, but
their rate of homosexuality is probably still higher than would
be expected given the population rate of female homosexuality,
which is probably less than 1 percent.

Recently, we have shown that on average,
gay men and lesbians are very different on average from straight
people in the way they walk and speak. There is such a thing,
evidently, as a gay voice. And lesbians tend to look different
than straight women -- in particular, they have shorter hairstyles.

On the other hand, some stereotypes about homosexual people are
due to the fact that they are in certain other ways psychologically
like straight people of their own sex. For example, gay men have
lots of sex partners compared with straight men. This is because
they have a male-typical level of interest in casual sex, but
because they are seeking other men with the same interest, they
can have as many partners as they want. Straight men are constrained
by the desires of women. I think that there is nothing intrinsically
"gay" about having hundreds of sex partners. Lots of
straight guys would if they could. But they can't, because they
can't find female partners who'll have anonymous sex with them.